Le U-turn on French Cars

If Papa and Nicole were around aujourd'hui they might well be grunting in uncharacteristic Anglo-Saxon rather than purring in Gallic monosyllables. The fictional French father and daughter were the stars of an extraordinarily popular sequence of TV adverts, devised by Publicis, marketing the Renault Clio from 1991 to 1998. Sales of the cute French car were undoubtedly boosted by the charming ads even if Nicole was, in fact, Estelle Skornick, a young Polish actress apparently named after an old-school, rear-engined Skoda from the former Czechoslovakia.

What, though, could possibly upset the perfect poise of Renault's famous father and daughter? The latest copy of Which?Car, that's what. The fastidious consumer magazine has made a survey of 90,000 British car owners to decide which are Britain's best loved and most disliked new cars. Guess what? French cars took six out of the 10 bottom places, with Renault itself being panned for three models, the Scenic, Laguna and Espace. Peugeot's 206 and 307 models met with equal disapproval, and few had a good word to say for the Citroen Xsara. The French cars were generally dismissed as being uncomfortable and unreliable.

What did those surveyed pick as the creme de la motoring creme? They liked the Porsche Boxter and the Range Rover the best. They liked the Audi TT, too. Otherwise, seven out of 10 of their favorite cars were Japanese. The French didn't get a look in.

This is some turn around since the heyday of Papa, Nicole and the Clio. A U-turn in public taste and appreciation you might say. What on earth, or in France, has happened? A great deal. Although you might expect Which?Car to root for solid, reliable cars that it's easy to imagine being as good looking as a cement mixer and as exciting to drive on the public road as the pedal car you trundled down the garden path on as a toddler, you would be wrong.

Among those seven Japanese cars are the Mazda MX-5 and the Toyota S2000, two very fine sports cars indeed. The latter is even rather beautiful, one of the very few Japanese cars ever to have caught my eye this side of the Toyota 2000GT, the feline roadster that co-starred in the Bond film You Only Live Twice. Japanese cars have changed a great deal since they first won over a large section of the British public during the bad old days of British Leyland when our home-made cars fell to pieces even before they leaked off the end of ill-tempered production lines. Many new Japanese cars are fast, fun and chic as well as ultra-reliable today.

For those of us brought up on the reliable joys of Citroen 2CVs and Renault 4s, and who even toyed with the thought of a glamorous, pre-owned Citroen DS rather than a Mk2 Jag or a sensational, Star Trek-style Citroen SM rather than an E-type, the latest report makes for sorry reading. I would like to say that the French cars are more chic than their Japanese counterparts and that it would be worth sacrificing just a little reliability for sheer chic and élan. I can't. Instead, I can see a popular sequence of Japanese TV ads featuring the Honda Jazz. Instead of waiting for cries of "Papa!" and "Nicole!", we'll hear "Chicchi!". "Natsuki!" Quelle dommage.